Frustrated with your marketing performance numbers?
You’re excited to share your product and knowledge with the world, yet it seems like nothing you try has been effective in getting your business in front of the right audience to generate the traction you are looking for. You’re launching ads, sending emails and posting landing pages blindly, without knowing if your audience is going to respond or engage. Even the marketing campaigns you spend lots of time perfecting don’t get the results you’re hoping for — which means money, time and opportunity wasted. It’s tough to build a successful business when you’re just guessing who your audience might be and what messaging will best speak to them.
Other small business owners and entrepreneurs have been where you are now. Many entrepreneurs assume that it’s extremely expensive and complicated to acquire the kind of tools needed in order to understand which marketing elements work best and that they’re only accessible to massive businesses that have the budgets to match. You may have wondered, even if they were affordable, how a small business could find the time to implement and maintain them? This uncertainty has left many marketers unsure about the best way to speak with their audiences, leaving budgets to be squandered on creating ineffective messaging.
The secret to sustainably improving your marketing
There’s a relatively simple way to see how your audience responds to your marketing in real time and to discover what’s bringing you the best return on your money. It is not some elusive and expensive tool that is exclusive to large companies. It is a simple technique that anyone can employ and which can deliver big ROI for very little to no extra investment. It’s called split testing.
When you use split testing in your marketing strategy, you are simply experimenting with variations in your landing pages, emails, ads, or other types of marketing collateral and then analyzing the results to better understand which aspects resonate most with the specific audience you’re targeting. In fact, former President of the United States Barack Obama used it in his campaigns to raise an additional $60 million. It’s how he figured out which messages in his campaign spoke most strongly to his audience and those most likely to support him. 71% of small and mid-sized businesses report testing their marketing efforts two or more times a week, with 60% of businesses saying it’s a great way to optimize their conversion rates.
Although it may still sound difficult and pricey, 63% of the businesses reported having no trouble implementing these testing methods. If you’re already using a modern all-in-one marketing automation platform, implementing this tool won’t cost you any more than you’re already spending. With little extra effort, split testing allows you to see which landing page converts more, which email gets the most opens or clicks, and which ads really are giving you the boost your business has been waiting for. While there is a small time and financial investment involved in initiating split testing if you aren’t already using an all-in-one marketing tool, the cost of skipping the process, and thus missing out on increased conversions, is considerably greater over time.
How can split testing pay off in your business? The data speaks for itself
In just one example of simple split testing, ExpressWatches used the strategy to help increase sales 107% by replacing their price guarantee badge with a trust symbol. As Peep Laja, the founder of ConversionXL wrote,
With nearly three quarters of companies using split testing multiple times a week, split testing has become necessary for businesses in order to stay competitive. As the What to Split Test guide states, “If you could improve a landing page’s conversion rate from 1% to just 2%, that would mean doubling your results — opt-ins and sales — on just one page. That’s a huge opportunity for your business and just one of many attainable goals by means of split testing. You never know what will end up resonating with your target audience — so always be testing!” And with so many opportunities for small successes that add up to big wins for your business, the sooner you can get started with split testing, the better.
The benefits of split testing your marketing
Split testing can make a significant difference in the effectiveness of your campaigns moving forward. With it, you’ll be able to:
- Test every variation you’ve ever wanted to try in your marketing campaign so you can be confident which variation works
- Reduce the amount of time used to optimize your conversions to make more revenue, faster
- Make the most effective decisions in terms of your marketing budget to improve your marketing performance across the board
- Rather than guessing, know right away which of your landing pages, emails or ads are performing so you can eliminate those that are losing you money
- See data-driven results from your campaigns so you can create a stable, sustainable revenue stream moving forward
Need more inspiration on what you can (and should) split test? Check out What to Split Test for ideas and guidance on different elements you should consider when you start split testing your marketing assets.
